This volume discusses criminology and policy analysis of adolescence. The focus is on the principles and policy of a separate and distinct system of juvenile justice. The book opens with an ...
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This volume discusses criminology and policy analysis of adolescence. The focus is on the principles and policy of a separate and distinct system of juvenile justice. The book opens with an introduction of the creation of adolescence, presenting a justification for the category of the juvenile or a period of partial responsibility before full adulthood. Subsequent sections include empirical investigations of the nature of youth criminality and legal policy towards youth crime. At the heart of the book is an argument for a penal policy that recognizes diminished responsibility and a youth policy that emphasizes the benefits of letting the maturing process continue with minimal interruption. The book concludes with applications of the core concerns to five specific problem areas in current juvenile justice: teen pregnancy, transfer to criminal court, minority overrepresentation, juvenile gun use, and youth homicide.Less

American Juvenile Justice

Franklin E. Zimring

Published in print: 2005-09-16

This volume discusses criminology and policy analysis of adolescence. The focus is on the principles and policy of a separate and distinct system of juvenile justice. The book opens with an introduction of the creation of adolescence, presenting a justification for the category of the juvenile or a period of partial responsibility before full adulthood. Subsequent sections include empirical investigations of the nature of youth criminality and legal policy towards youth crime. At the heart of the book is an argument for a penal policy that recognizes diminished responsibility and a youth policy that emphasizes the benefits of letting the maturing process continue with minimal interruption. The book concludes with applications of the core concerns to five specific problem areas in current juvenile justice: teen pregnancy, transfer to criminal court, minority overrepresentation, juvenile gun use, and youth homicide.

This chapter examines how a a national panic over a perceived escalation in youth criminality surfaced in the early 1940s, which was triggered by the social transformations of wartime. For Chinese in ...
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This chapter examines how a a national panic over a perceived escalation in youth criminality surfaced in the early 1940s, which was triggered by the social transformations of wartime. For Chinese in the United States, the issue of juvenile delinquency became an important means through which to stipulate their race and citizenship imperatives after World War II. Chinatown leaders adopted a bifurcated strategy that reflected the ongoing tension between sameness and difference under racial liberalism. In one direction, community managers argued that juvenile delinquency was as much a problem for the Chinese as for other Americans. They stressed their right to state resources to stamp out youth crime as equal and deserving members of the polity.Less

Chinatown Offers Us a Lesson

Ellen D. Wu

Published in print: 2013-11-24

This chapter examines how a a national panic over a perceived escalation in youth criminality surfaced in the early 1940s, which was triggered by the social transformations of wartime. For Chinese in the United States, the issue of juvenile delinquency became an important means through which to stipulate their race and citizenship imperatives after World War II. Chinatown leaders adopted a bifurcated strategy that reflected the ongoing tension between sameness and difference under racial liberalism. In one direction, community managers argued that juvenile delinquency was as much a problem for the Chinese as for other Americans. They stressed their right to state resources to stamp out youth crime as equal and deserving members of the polity.

The number of juveniles arrested for sex offenses has remained stable over the past quarter century and there are no indications that the behaviors leading to arrests or the likelihood of repetition ...
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The number of juveniles arrested for sex offenses has remained stable over the past quarter century and there are no indications that the behaviors leading to arrests or the likelihood of repetition of sex crime has changed much in the past few decades. Indeed, there is reason to believe that officially reported juvenile sex offenses other than forcible rape are spread more evenly across the cities and suburbs of developed nations and are also less variable over time than many other types of youth criminality. But while the frequency and type of sex offending by the young has remained stable in the United States during the last two decades or so, attitudes concerning how to best respond to the problem have changed. This chapter documents and explores some of these changes.Less

The Emergence of Juvenile Sex-Offender Treatment

Published in print: 2004-06-30

The number of juveniles arrested for sex offenses has remained stable over the past quarter century and there are no indications that the behaviors leading to arrests or the likelihood of repetition of sex crime has changed much in the past few decades. Indeed, there is reason to believe that officially reported juvenile sex offenses other than forcible rape are spread more evenly across the cities and suburbs of developed nations and are also less variable over time than many other types of youth criminality. But while the frequency and type of sex offending by the young has remained stable in the United States during the last two decades or so, attitudes concerning how to best respond to the problem have changed. This chapter documents and explores some of these changes.